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The history of telecommunications technology is a chronology of the desire to communicate with loved ones. 
However, the desire to communicate with those dead loved ones in the grave and beyond is part of this history. In the
early twentieth century, investigators modified the telegraph and wireless
with the hopes of communicating with the dead. Thomas Edison, whose parents
were Spiritualists, worked on but never completed a telephone that he hoped
would connect the living with the dead. During the 1940s the "psychic
telephone" experiments were conduct in England and America in attempts
to reach the dead. Again, interest arose in the 1960s when Konstantin Raudive
announced that he had captured voices of the dead in electromagnetic tape. When Thomas Edison set out to invent a device to communicate with the
dead, he never dreamed of the telephone and the communications
explosion we witness today. Yet the discourse of disembodiment still
haunts the copper and glass which weaves across the globe. By
examining our and others relationship to death and technology we hope
to continue a thought which started with the words: "Watson, come here,
I need you."
Vistors to the gallery are asked to pick up the phone and explore the sounds of silence, "hanging on the line," disembodied space and stories of those who have spoken by phone to those who have passed on. 
Medium: telephone, voicemail system on computer, sound mix, soundtracks, signage Date: 1999 Image sources: Personal collection and stock image CD |
